Morning Musume Wants You To Forget The Past!

This is a CM that is currently promoting Morning Musume's new single as well as their current lineup. Also it is for MM's 16th anniversary, which I forgot to mention when submitting this post.

Translation for the yellow texts: "Gone is the Morning Musume。 you once knew.We’ll improve both ourselves and idol world.It’s an evolution resulted from 16 years long process, not the change that happens abruptly.10 girls who met by chance to become the 10 girls of destiny.We won’t give up on becoming the cutest and the coolest.We’ve become strong enough to carry everyone’s expectation.The girls who admire that era, are now trying their best to surpass it.We’ll always stand up no matter what, both in life and idol world.To stay freshest.To be the best.To be the most beloved.It’s still way too early to decide if we’re finally back to our finest time yet.Shall we go, then?”

I think this whole CM is addressing some of the issues that has been going down in the fandom for awhile. For instance some older generation fans have a hard time adjusting to the change of the music direction as well as to the girls themselves. It's a pretty clever idea to acknowledge Morning Musume's past while talking about the present and thinking about the future.

it's a completely different group now so it makes sense to try and draw a line between the past and the present. they seem to be in a process of finding a new place for themselves in the biz and they seem to be headed in the right direction, for once.

Ever since the 9kis joined I've viewed Momusu as 3 different generations; golden, platinum, and future. And the future-gen have taken a big leap in the right direction since "Renai Hunter". They're making their own place in the idol world and it is exciting.

it used to be like you said back when I joined the fandom - I remember thinking that fans who used that term were so snobbish and condescending towards younger gens ;) but now from what i understand that term is more flexible and refers to MM's more successful days in general? and I just learned we have something called platinum era, lol who knew

Hm.. it's kinda hard to forget the reason why I joined the fandom but I understand what they're saying. I'll continue to support them but I don't think I'll be able to 'connect' with the new generation as much as the golden/platinum girls. I put it down to my age (I'm a year younger than Sayumin).

I'm 27 and am really enjoying the new gens. They're idols, I can't really 'connect' to them anyway but it's nice to be able to watch them grow for once. I started following them closer back in the platinum era but they weren't really growing as a group.

I find myself listening to them on a weekly basis. Even though they're younger, their music is very refreshing. It's a shame about platinum, they had so much potential but that's in the past and I'm getting used to the new gen.

No yeah Platinum era was a really cool era, but UFP just didn't know how to promote them. I'm pretty sure that if they had the amount of promotions that this era is getting Platinum era would have been pretty successful as well.

If anything the Platinum era is when the decline sort of plateau'ed, which I don't think they get enough credit for. The fact that they stayed in the same general sales range for four years with such bad promotion is pretty impressive.

That, and performance-wise, they were easily the best lineup MM has ever had.

No yeah I totally understand. It was like you grew up alongside the members of the golden and platinum era. So once they graduated it was like who are these babies that were just added to the group?! It's good enough to support them even if you don't connect with any if the younger generations.

I started watching MM with the Platinum era mostly so I'm more of a Platinum/Aichan/current era fan. I admit I lost a lot of interest when Aichan left and when 9th/10th gen joined, plus it became Riho/Reina and I barely noticed the other members. To me this new era started with Sakura joining and Reina leaving, but I get that Renai Hunter or actually more like OTT were the catalysts and the starters.

I really love this era, I got to like all the members which never happened before, some more and some less, but I still really like the group as a whole. And I'm loving the songs since Wakuteka and the newer ones with better distribution are way better. So really happy about this era and I do hope they can somehow reach a great idol status.

They've done a good job reinventing the image of the group ever since the members from the Platinum era (wow, I can't believe I'm talking about the Momusu I knew in the past tense now) all graduated, but there's such a huge flaw inherent in this type of a revolving door pop group. If it goes on too long it just becomes such a huge mess of a discography and can really divide the fans, and there becomes a need to "surpass" the peak era or change the image drastically to maintain public interest.

Just idk, I think Momusu probably should've ended when their time was up nine years ago. Another thing they really should do is bring in different musicians to provide their music -- a revolving door producer to go with a group whose lineup changes almost yearly. Tsunku had some really good songs and brought in genuinely great people to arrange their music but it's become so stale now, even with them hopping on the brostep/EDM bandwagon.

I don't see what's wrong with the frequent member changes. You say it's a flaw, but AKB48 practices the same method and they're super successful.

The desire to surpass the last era isn't a weakness. Instead, it's a strength because it pushes the group to improve themselves. They know that talented members came before them. They want to be just as good as they were. Obviously, 9 years ago wasn't their time to end yet.

But I completely agree with you in that they need to seriously bring in some more song writers, besides tsunku, to create more diverse music.

I got into MM around the time 6th gen joined and I started losing interest after Koharu graduated. Then again, I was losing interest in idol groups in general anyway.

Like a lot of people here, I'm having a hard time connecting with the 9th gen and I can't really say why. Maybe I just don't find them as relatable as the other girls in the previous gens, but they are genuinely entertaining to watch at times. Maybe I'll grow to like them more after time since I do keep up with MM every now and then just to see what they're up to.

I really hope Sayu doesn't graduate anytime soon because she's my favorite member at the moment within the group.

I have been in this fandom since 2002... yep I'm 28 years old now and still listening to them. I recently download a concert and I enjoyed it the way I used to enjoy concerts before. Of course I can't remember the names of the girls anymore xD but still I keep an eye in the new releases as well. I'm not sure if the dubstep style is appropriate for them, I still feel like something is missing :/but I understand they have to change with the world of idol music, specially because they're an idol group not a rock band that can defies the mainstream with original music. I have seen changes in my favorite idol groups and I'm getting over it because I understand this is an industry they need to sell copies or their cds and concerts tickets in order to remain in the business.